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News round-up – 1 October 2021

01/10/2021

New rules to govern digital trade enter into force today!

The newly approved Uniform Rules for Digital Trade Transactions are officially released and enter into force today, 1 October 2021. You can download them here

Trade Register – 2021 report now out

The annual ICC Trade Register report was released on 28 September. This year’s report assesses the performance of trade assets in both 2019 and 2020 – thus capturing the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the market. The public executive summary and details on how to order the full report are available on the ICC’s dedicated ICC Trade Register project page

Defining sustainable trade finance transactions

A new ICC initiative to develop a common industry taxonomy for sustainable trade finance is now fully up and running. Both the Review Group and Steering Committee for this project held kick-off meetings earlier this week – with the development of the taxonomy to be undertaken via four short consultations with these members. The ICC aim to release a “beta” version of this vital framework at the UN’s climate conference (“COP26”) in November.

ICC Banking Commission Technical Meeting sessions

The ICC Banking Commission’s next plenary  session will be held on Thursday, 7 October 2021 and the session reviewing the latest Opinions will be held on Wednesday, 6 October. Details of the opinions approved will appear later in the week in the usual newsletter that is available to members of this website.

ICC Sustainable Export Finance Report released 22 September 2021

Developed with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation and 16 leading banks, the white paper explores how the US$700 billion export finance industry can significantly increase its contribution to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris climate accord.

Export finance is used to enable the purchase of capital goods through loan agreements granted to importers and secured by sovereign guarantors – most commonly, an Export Credit Agency (ECA) in the exporter's home country. Despite its strategic importance in facilitating the types of capital expenditure called for by the SDGs, the asset class has previously received relatively little attention as a potential driver of sustainable development.

Through an extensive six-month market consultation of over 500 market participants and more than 150 interviews – including with export credit agencies, government authorities, banks, buyers, exporters, industry associations and civil society – the white paper presents for the first time product and policy recommendations to accelerate the flow of export financing towards sustainable activity globally.

The report concludes with a number of headline recommendations, including:

·       Aligning ECAs, bilateral development finance institutions and domestic financing initiatives to enable a “whole of government” approach towards global sustainability commitments;

·       Scaling support for innovative export finance deals, including leveraging blended finance structures to meet the capital expenditure needed to meet the SDGs; and

·       Reviewing – and potentially revising – the OECD’s framework governing the operations of ECAs to allow for more flexibility and incentives for transactions that support global sustainability goals. 

Please click here to read the white paper in its entirety. 


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